The St. Ambrose bowlers competed at the annual Leatherneck Classic this past weekend. Hosted in Rockford, Ill., for the very first time, the event attracted 98 teams from across the country.

The men's varsity finished in eighth place (8295 pins) out of 40 teams, advancing to the eight-team match play bracket, where they put up a fight against No. 1 seed Webber International before falling 2-1. The top three seeds were Webber (9257), Wichita State (8855) and Mount Mercy (8814). Wichita State downed Webber 2-1 for the championship. 

Tommy Burns Jr. led the way for the Bees with 1074 for his five games. His teammates were Kendric Siders (1029-five games), Lucas Hersrud (809-four games), Tyler Close (583-three games) Nicholas Kidd (403-two games), Jay Oliva-Colobong (403-two games), Zach Greim (742-four games) and Keaten Bieri.

SAU had a pair of JV teams competing. JV1 finished in third place (8296 pins), while JV2 ended up in sixth (8022 pins) in the field of 19 men's JV squads. The top two qualifiers were Wisconsin-Whitewater (8448) and St. Francis (Ill.) (8369). JV1 qualified for the four-team bracket finals, and knocked off St. Francis 2-1 to advance to the championship match, where they were defeated 2-0 by Wisconsin-Whitewater.

JV1 team members were Kevin Magnuson (1059-five games), Wyatt Honecker (1007-five games), Raiden Nakagawa (906-four games), Evan White (525-three games), Anthony Mastroianni (521-three games), Logan Boll (490-two games), Will Young (465-two games) and Jaxon Robinson (142-one game).

JV2 team members were Josh Prowse (1071-five games), Eli Haack (854-four games), Juny Almeida (831-four games), Brendan DeWerth (773-four games), Charlie Wooldridge (764-four games), Chayce Stouffer (313-two games), Myles Breemeersch (183-one game), and Ahren Barnickel (150-one game).

The women's varstiy team finished in 13th place out of 30 teams; they totaled 7088 pins. The top three teams were Mount Mercy (8424), Concordia (7757) and Judson (7694). Saint Xavier, the No. 7 seed, knocked off top qualifier Mount Mercy 2-0 to win the event. St. Ambrose team members were Marissa Bills (941-five games), Tricia Alvarado (936-five games), Sammy Upham (843-five games), Maddie Ksobiech (834-five games), Haven Hospodar (726-four games), Megan Nyenhuis (146-one game), Madison Holevoet and Brooklyn Schlapkohl.

The women's JV team finished seventh out of eight teams with 6104 pins. William Penn was the top JV qualifier with 7394 pins, and they beat St. Francis to capture the JV title. SAU team members included Delaney Walsh (845-five games), Makenna Verdon (731-five games), Shay Edwards (585-four games), Lily Murphy (582-four games), Sam Lundvall (564-four games), and Hannah Stearns (413-three games).

The next event on the 2024-25 schedule is the Warhawk Open on Dec. 7-8 in Addison, Ill.